Let me try again, hopefully more nicely: You made a very strong claim with very weak evidence.
You claimed our thoughts were fundamentally affected by our language, and that someone can control how people think by tweaking the language. Your evidence was your own sense (not a paper, not even a survey) that people think differently when writing in a different programming language.
If you have more evidence, I would really like to see it, I am not just saying that to score points or to make you angry.
Your evidence was your own sense (not a paper, not even a survey) that people think differently when writing in a different programming language.
I refer not to my own sense so much as what is more or less universally acknowledged by influential thinkers in that field. That doesn’t preclude the culture being wrong, but I do put Paul Graham on approximately the same level as Pinker, for example.
While Pinker is an extremely good populariser and writes some engaging accounts that are based off real science, I’ve actually been bitten by taking his word on faith too much before. He has a tendency to present things as established fact when they are far from universally agreed upon in the field and may not even be the majority position. The example that I’m thinking of primarily is what he writes about fear instincts, regarding to what extent fear of snakes (for example) is learned vs instinctive. His presentation of what has been determined by primate studies is, shall we say, one sided at best.
While Pinker is an extremely good populariser and writes some engaging accounts that are based off real science, I’ve actually been bitten by taking his word on faith too much before. He has a tendency to present things as established fact when they are far from universally agreed upon in the field
Seconded. Reading him is a good method of learning how to resist the Dark Arts, since he’s pretty good at writing persuasively.
With regards to whether it is possible to deliberately use language to alter everyday thoughts, we know Orwell’s Newspeak was based on at least one real-life example (and I can think of a couple of similar tricks being employed right now, but this could verge into mind-killing territory).
Fair points, and using the term control does make the claim sound a whole heap stronger than ‘are influenced’ does. (Although technically there is very little difference.)
I apologize for poor conversational form.
Let me try again, hopefully more nicely: You made a very strong claim with very weak evidence.
You claimed our thoughts were fundamentally affected by our language, and that someone can control how people think by tweaking the language. Your evidence was your own sense (not a paper, not even a survey) that people think differently when writing in a different programming language.
If you have more evidence, I would really like to see it, I am not just saying that to score points or to make you angry.
I refer not to my own sense so much as what is more or less universally acknowledged by influential thinkers in that field. That doesn’t preclude the culture being wrong, but I do put Paul Graham on approximately the same level as Pinker, for example.
While Pinker is an extremely good populariser and writes some engaging accounts that are based off real science, I’ve actually been bitten by taking his word on faith too much before. He has a tendency to present things as established fact when they are far from universally agreed upon in the field and may not even be the majority position. The example that I’m thinking of primarily is what he writes about fear instincts, regarding to what extent fear of snakes (for example) is learned vs instinctive. His presentation of what has been determined by primate studies is, shall we say, one sided at best.
Seconded. Reading him is a good method of learning how to resist the Dark Arts, since he’s pretty good at writing persuasively.
I’ve heard more than once from people who are fluent in more than one language that they feel as though they’re a different person in each language.
It’s a fairly extensive subject; I doubt you’ll settle this within a comment thread.
With regards to whether it is possible to deliberately use language to alter everyday thoughts, we know Orwell’s Newspeak was based on at least one real-life example (and I can think of a couple of similar tricks being employed right now, but this could verge into mind-killing territory).
You have made me quite curious...
Fair points, and using the term control does make the claim sound a whole heap stronger than ‘are influenced’ does. (Although technically there is very little difference.)